Droll Hunting

Imagine if crossed the Blair Witch Project with This Is Spinal Tap. Now set it in Norway with trolls — and you’ve got Trollhunter.

You may be asking yourself, do we need another Blair Witch knock-off? Do we need another Spinal Tap knockoff? Even together? Even in Norway? And the answer to all of your questions would be no. No, not really. Like the trolls it purports to document, the film’s existence is both superfluous and kind of ridiculous.

That’s not to say that the film is bad, exactly. Just that there’s something oddly mysterious in its unmotivated lumbering.

It’s possible something crucial has been lost in the translation from the Norwegian. Or, alternately, Trollhunter may suffer from excess of appetite. The eponymous government troll hunter Hans (Otto Jesperson), in one of his many quirky troll anecdotes, discusses a troll he saw who was so dumb it tried to eat its own tail. The movie itself seems to miss the mark in a similar way. It tries to be comedy; tries to be horror; staggers back and forth a little and then, getting into the swing of it, settles for just roaring a lot and knocking things over.

(Spoilers follow, if you care about that sort of thing.)

The dilemma is perhaps best summed up during what’s probably supposed to be an emotional highpoint; the death of one of the teenaged main characters three-quarters of the way through the film. The protagonists and Hans are trapped in a cave with marauding trolls. The doomed kid (the cameraman), in a panic, frantically rubs disgusting troll stink all over himself, hoping to hide his scent. Unfortunately, though, he is, as it turns out, a Christian, which means that the trolls can smell him. Shortly thereafter, he’s eaten, leaving his companions to wail at the uncaring heavens, “Why didn’t he just say he was a Christian!”

So that’s the joke, and it’s moderately funny in a ha-ha-we’re-all-atheists-here kind of way. It could almost be a really low-key Monty Python sketch — except that up to this moment, the dead character has been treated as an actual person, rather than a goofy gag line. Not that there’s a ton of character development or anything, but for purposes of the previous horror-movie-running-away-and-screaming, there’s been at least some effort to pretend that what happens to this guy matters. And then, all of a sudden, he’s just thrown away. And then you see everyone else grieve for a minute or so…and then they stop, and get a replacement cameraperson (who’s a Muslim, so trolls probably can’t smell her — only Christians, not Muslims. Get it?) The whole thing just ends up being not just crass, but unbelievable. This kid just died; there’s no investigation? No explanation to the police? The other teenagers don’t stop and say, you know, our friend just died; screw the trolls, I’m headed home?

Instead, on they go, trundling from set piece to dry-humored set piece. Hans dresses in armor to fight a troll; Hans explains that the trolls’ extra heads are just growths designed to impress other males and attract females; Hans talks about the trauma of killing troll infants; a veterinarian explains the improbable biology of trolls turning to stone when sunrise hits them. It’s amusing enough, and the trolls themselves, as special effects, are goofily effective. Over the entire film, though, the archness becomes tedious. The Last Exorcism, with its hand-held camera horror, was not a great movie, but it cared about its main character, about its genre, and about the story it had to tell. This Is Spinal Tap was a goof, but it clearly had great affection for the hapless band it parodied. Trollhunter, in comparison, has no real characters, no real story, no real point —just extended snickering and occasional enjoyable special effects.

In a way, it almost makes you hope for the inevitable English-language remake. If somebody cares about the thing enough to purchase the rights, maybe they’ll care enough to give the film some kind of direction. Laughing at the trolls is all right in limited doses, but if this is going to work, someone out there needs to love them a little as well.

18 Comments

Normally I am a really big fan of Noah but he has this nasty habit that pops up occasionally. He completely and almost aggressively misunderstands the source material, imagines some moral flaw, and then assumes the flaw exists in its creators and audience.

In this case he doesn’t understand the importance of Norwegian folklore. The combination of found footage a trolls is closer to a satire like the Office. The formal mighty and charismatic troll hunters from legend have been reduced to mid level government bureaucracy with all of the mystique taken out. The Christian bit was part of the joke because it suggested the removal of meaning from modern myth to the point where the Christian smelling bit is just a meaningless attribute.

I don’t know enough about Norwegian society to be able to able to properly enjoy the film or even explain anything more. Next time you see something you don’t like or understand, try understanding it from the point of view of the people who like it or made it. It could be you who is lacking in wisdom,knowledge, or taste, not the art or its creators and fans.

Also try reading more about film grammar. When reviewing a film you rarely show any evidence that you saw it instead of just reading the script.

I like this movie a lot, I thought it was funny and I liked that it was silly while also taking itself fairly seriously.

I’m Norwegian though, so I guess the jokes hit closer to home? I loved how they explained stuff like having many heads and turning to stone “scientifically”, but never could explain how they were able to smell what religion someone had. The scene where the one kid dies came as a shock, I never really saw it coming. I just loved seeing such an absurd idea applied to a “realistic” movie. I also laughed a lot at the goats scene, though I know that story is known elsewhere as well (but probably not to the degree that it is here).

I heard the Americans bought the rights to it ages ago but I’m glad they haven’t done anything with it. How would they be able to make a movie with a similar story in America? Trolls are a huge part of Norwegian culture. And if the idea were to set it in Norway but use American actors… I just don’t get the point.

Sorry I should have explained myself better. You seemed to accuse the filmmakers or apathy and laziness rather than assume the low key aesthetic was intentional. I think pacing is usually more dictated by the script depending on the script and filmmakers. One page is usually one minute, so the reader of a script should be able to figure out the pacing.

Other things you didn’t mention in this review, color correction, lighting, cinematography,editing any reference to sound. Were some things more in focus than others? In The Long Goodbye the focus became sharper as the character understood more of what was going on. What was the color scheme? Why do you think the filmmakers chose it? In 2012 color lines were intentionally made to draw the audiences attention to the pane to change the perspective from the eyes of man to the eyes of God. In universe, no one edited the film so the filmmakers must have chosen what they thought was important. What images did the show? How did the juxtaposition affect the themes?

Cinema has a grammar and how the information is presented changes the fundamental message. Just look at Starship Troopers or more infamously Les Misrerables.

If you’re doing film criticism, it’s usually a good a idea to focus on element of a film in order to make some larger point. (I just wrote something about the move Gamer but don’t know where to publish it.)If you’re doing a consumer review, leaving out large parts of movie doesn’t really help the reader. If you’re pressed for space or time, you can just say something like “the minimalist aesthetic is more boring than funny”.

Admittedly this a found footage movie so not all of these apply. Next time you do some film criticism, try to think a little about this. You might want to stop referring to your pieces as reviews because that implies consumer advice.

Hey. If you want to talk about that stuff, talk about it. The idea that film pacing is based on the script seems really naive to me though. If I’d thought there was interesting things to say about the stuff you’re talking about there, I would have done so. There’s lots of stuff to talk about with any film. I really don’t feel like I have to make a list of all aspects of a film in a several hundred word review.

I think the film was fairly apathetic. That’s not based on the low-key humor, which I’m quite aware was supposed to be low-key. It’s based on the fact that there didn’t seem to be much at stake, for the filmmakers or the audience. If you disagree, that’s fine. Different strokes and all that.

Just fyi, I’m not very interested in tips from folks about how I can improve my reviewing or writing. This isn’t a workshop. If you have reactions to the review, that’s cool, and I’m happy to talk about them, but telling me how to improve my writing or whatever just makes you sound weirdly condescending.

I don’t understand why you have trouble appreciating the premise of the film, a nature documentary about legendary creatures with illogical characteristics, or your objection to the famous propensity for smelling Christian blood. Certainly it seems perverse to wish for a gushy, Spielbergian American remake.

It’s not a nature documentary, though. That might be fun, or at least a bit fresher (an Attenborough-esque voice over could have been goofy, for example.)

What it is, though is a combination mockumentary focused on troll hunters (not the natural ecology of trolls) and found footage films. Like I said, I just didn’t feel like it had a particularly interesting or funny take on either of those well-covered genres.

I have to admit I’m caught a little flat-footed that this particular post on a small release film from some time back has generated so much resistance. You just never know what’s going to hit a nerve, I guess.

Because you’re saying this small release film shouldn’t even have a right to exist. I can understand such taking such hostility toward one of those megabudget American fantasy films that bombards you with advertising whether you want to see it or not, but I can’t understand your being so offended by the existence of a quirky, small independent film about Norwegian culture and folklore. Hoping for an Americanized treatment with a pushy, manipulative emotional arc and all the regional flavor squeezed out is like asking for more of a Walmart presence in the South American rainforest.

I thought the Christian thing was appropriate for a film about the imposing persistence of ancestral superstition to a modern, secular, commercial society. In vampire films the efficacy of crosses never seems to disturb the characters even though unambiguously confirming the correctness of one major world religion would do violence to anybody’s philosophy, and the discovery that a monstrous creature is able to detect Christians (and that hiring a Muslim cameraman solves the problem) is responded appropriately superficially by the characters.

I wasn’t offended by its existence. I saw it and was bored and mildly irritated, so that’s what I said in the review. There are plenty of worse films. I don’t think small independent features should get a pass on being mediocre just because they’re small and independent, though.

“You may be asking yourself, do we need another Blair Witch knock-off? Do we need another Spinal Tap knockoff? Even together? Even in Norway? And the answer to all of your questions would be no. No, not really. Like the trolls it purports to document, the film’s existence is both superfluous and kind of ridiculous.”

Heh. I’m really just saying that it’s not necessary, not that I want to blot it off the earth (there are movies I would blot of the earth if I could. Schindler’s List. Or hell, maybe everything by Steven Spielberg.)

There are trolls I like. (Tove Janson’s, for example.) I didn’t feel like the film gave me much reason to care about these ones, though.